Sign?
by BookCaseGirl
Summary: Takes place roughly before 2.25. Chuck and Blair are in the courtyard during senior yearbook signing day and ask one another to sign their yearbooks.


**Title: Sign?**

**Author: BookCaseGirl (Abby)**

**Date: June 8, 2009**

**Status: Complete **

**Rating: Strong T.**

**Classification: Moderately fluffy oneshot.**

_**Summary: Takes place roughly before 2.25. Chuck and Blair are in the courtyard during senior yearbook signing day and ask one another to sign their yearbooks.**_

**A/N: **I'm sort of back, guys. I hope everyone likes this since it's the first thing I've been able to squeeze out in a while that I'm actually happy with. And thank you to Michelle for betaing...oh and I do not own Gossip Girl!

_Sign?_

Blair gazed across the courtyard. Senior picnic, senior year, senior yearbooks. She had made it, she'd succeeded. Through every tough part she soared, through every simple part she galloped with glee and ease. Each love, every fling, all the fights, she had made it through everything.

Believe it or not, this wasn't the time that she wanted to reminisce. She was – instead – staring at a certain Bass boy, who was writing away on some busty slut's yearbook page with a flourish of his arm and a smirk on his face. The little whore giggled – _ugh, _it sounded like _bubblegum!_ - and he went back to paging through his own book, ignoring her.

She decided to flip through her yearbook, curious. She usually saved looking at the gobs and gobs of signatures she received until she got home, where she could flip on the music and pop chocolates into her mouth, commenting in her mind on each person's handwriting.

Today, that changed. She was a different Blair Waldorf, beginning now. A Blair who could easily change plans, who was so much more flexible. As she turned to a page full of scrawly writing – _really, Serena? You couldn't be a little more neat?_ - she smiled and even let out the smallest of laughs at her greatest and most bubbly friend – her polar opposite, yet the person who knew her best.

Nate and his doctor-like writing was there, Dan _Humphrey_ was now a part of her senior memories (okay, more so in the damn book), Jenny's flawlessly free and neat writing was carved; all of her teachers had signed with the traditional "Do the great things I know you're capable of" and "Good luck in the future, I know you'll do well" that she always received.

Just one missing.

God, she was a chicken. But she didn't want to make a complete fool out of herself and _faint_ right in _front of him._ Oh, the humiliation! She'd be his own personal laughing stock for the rest of eternity, and probably even thereafter.

Her legs were wobbly, there were _whooshes _of an indescribable emotion that swept through her at each thought and scenario. It was hell. It was heaven. It was both and everything in between; she wanted it so badly, and yet she wished it away with all of her might. That was what being in love with Chuck Bass was, though.

_You're over-thinking this, Blair._ She knew this because it was always what she did when it came to Chuck. She used her brain too much, she picked and prodded through every conversation; Blair relived every memory. She was so sure that Chuck never did any of those stupid and girlish things. Then again,she was a girl. They always did these sorts of things, so perhaps it was normal.

She glanced back up, and his eyes met hers. The caramel irises flitted back down to the book in his lap and _she_ was the one that blushed. Barely even did a thing, and _she _fucking blushed. Damn that asshole. He should just start a book on how to make girls flustered; surely it would rocket to the top of the New York Bestseller's list in less than a second.

All of a sudden, Blair got nerve. She stood up, hyper-aware of the many pairs of eyes that were staring at her, and then sat back down, nerve gone as soon as it had come. She sighed and propped her head up on her hands, staring longing at the path that would have led her twenty feet or so and then to him. Following each pebble with her eyes, she smirked as her mind wandered once more.

_Pay attention, Waldorf!_

Blair focused on not thinking at all, but on acting instead. She took a deep breath in, held it, and trained her mind on something totally unrelated to Chuck. Serena and the sleepover they'd had the other evening as a "oh, what if we never get to do this again?!" sort of thing. She tried to channel the happy and euphoric feelings she'd had not so long ago. Her thoughts focused on that one great night, and she let out the breath that had been held in for so long.

Standing up, she strode over to the fountain where Chuck still sat, gazing with lazy and uninterested eyes at something in the distance. The yearbook was closed and sat next to him with a Bic pen that lay across the top diagonally.

She sat down.

_**********_

"Sign my yearbook, Bass?" Her voice tore him out of his somewhat closed and private reverie. He tore his eyes away from – oh what the hell was that anyway? - something in the distance that he had been staring at and looked over at her. Chuck hadn't even noticed that she had sat down.

He didn't verbally respond, just took her book and opened it to the 'friends' signatures' page right in the middle. He uncapped the blue pen he had brought with him using his front teeth and spit the cap on the rocky ledge next to him, creating a sound of swishing air that broke what would have been an incredibly awkward silence.

What the hell was he supposed to _write, _anyway? Honestly, she was Blair _Waldorf, _princess – no, _Queen_ – of the Constance kingdom, and he was Chuck Bass. A Chuck Bass that didn't even goddamn deserve an emphasized name after his first. They were so different, and he didn't really know what she would want, yet the bastard claimed to know her better than he knew himself. He _claimed_ to _love her, _but he couldn't write a fucking _yearbook message?! _Shit, all it took was a "good luck in the future. S'been nice knowing ya" and he was off.

It wasn't that easy. Because he did love her, that was the thing. If he loved her, if he felt this intense and unknown thing for her, then he couldn't just write something simple. The message had to be miles long – yet condensed into a few short and sweet sentences that she would hold on to for – well, maybe forever?

He thought for a minute, tapping the ink pen incessantly against the glossy paper that filled her yearbook. Just when he thought he had it, he sighed, setting the pen down on the book.

"Well, are you planning on allowing me to sign _yours_ or do I just get to sit here and feel awkward, Basshole?" Blair snapped at him, flipping her head to the side and ridding of the curls that had fallen astray and into her face.

"S-sorry." Damn! He stuttered! Chuck _did not _stutter. He feebly handed over the rich, navy blue colored book without looking her in the eyes.

It finally came to him and he wrote what was thought – in his mind – to be a decent, maybe even great, message.

_**********_

Blair knew what she wanted to write, but she just couldn't physically do it. Her heart was flipping around like a fish out of water and her stomach was turning so nervously that all she wanted was for it to be cut out of her. People could live without stomachs, couldn't they?

_Stop being ridiculous, _she thought. _This _isn't _that hard!_

Finally, pen in hand, Blair began to scrawl away.

_**********_

_Why does she have to make it look so damn easy?Three seconds with that fountain pen in her hand and she's just off writing. Damn Yale preparation essays. Alright, Bass, focus. Eyes on the prize; you can do this. _

No one beat him. This was going to be good, and it was going to be done before Ms. Waldorf finished her own. It was funny how something so nerve-wracking had become a competition in mere seconds, but that was how things with Chuck and Blair were.

Hah! He was done, and Blair was still in world champion penmanship mode. He admired his work and let a genuine smile spread on his face as he read it over.

_Blair - _

_You helped me discover myself and become a truly better person, and that was only in the two years that we...Anyway, I think we have done well, overall. You bring out the best in me, and you capture feelings I never thought could be captured in myself. Everyday I am grateful that Nathanial introduced us back in first grade, because without you, my head wouldn't be on straight and I wouldn't be going in the right direction right now. You've helped me so much, and I hope our paths continue to cross in the future._

_-Chuck_

He added a smile at the end of the paragraph, but instantly regretted it, since it may have been a bit much. However, it was too late, since the ink was permanent. Then again, so were those words and the impact they would have on her – which was probably less or possibly as much as the great impact they had had on him.

_**********_

Blair glanced at Chuck out of the corner of her eye and noticed that he was sitting rather primly and looked freakishly relaxed. She put her hand into overdrive and continued to write. Before she knew it, she had gotten carried away and her message was longer than she had intended. Knowing that the proper thing was to read it over, she skimmed the – Good lord! It was nearly letter length! - yearbook message she had written Chuck.

_Dear Chuck,_

_I'm not exactly sure what to write here. We both know that I'm not the most self confident person on the planet, and...well, let's just say this isn't really helping to disprove that theory. Getting back to the point, Bass. It's been so nice getting to really know you. I feel that we're the only ones in this group with a real grasp on one another (don't take that the wrong way, though I am sure you will). Without sounding too sappy and end-of-the-year-signature, I'd like to say that we complete each other in a way. I've grown very fond of you, Chuck Bass. And you have taught me that it truly is possible to keep feeling this insane way about someone no matter how many times they drop you cold. I hope that we stay friends; I'm honestly not sure what I'd do without you!_

_XOXO_

_Blair_

The "XOXO" was added as an afterthought, because Blair figured since it was the end of the year, it wouldn't really matter too much. Plus, she sincerely doubted she would ever see him again. Leave it to Chuck Bass to graduate high school and then drop off the face of the earth. It was what he always did. She decided to add something else.

_P.S. Promise you'll never leave for too long_

Blair handed Chuck his yearbook at the same time he handed hers back.

_**********_

His eyes flitted over the words once...twice...thrice...and then for a fourth time before he let them fully sink in. He smiled and looked over at her.

What occurred then was a true Blair Waldorf blush, which was so rare and so adorable to observe happening. Yes, he had just called something in the world _adorable. _It pained him to just think about that word, gave him this shooting pain in his gut. A Bass man saying _adorable_ and not associating the word with _hooker._

_She sure didn't disappoint,_ he thought to himself with a smirk that threatened to spread into a smile for the second time in less than five minutes. When did Blair ever disappoint though?

It was definitely something he would cherish for a long time...Now then, time to gauge her reaction.

_**********_

_You blubbering idiot,_ she thought scornfully as she felt something watery and definitely unwanted pool at the corners of her eyes. It was so sweet, so thoughtful, almost too unlike Chuck.

Yet it was totally him in every single way. The words exuded the slightest bit of smarminess without being overly sarcastic and rude. It made her smile the way that he could flawlessly weave all these wonderful things in and yet he could barely write an English paper by the due date. There was a raw little boy hidden deep within there, and that was what really got the tears going.

She looked over at him once she was sure the tears – as well as any and all traces of them – had totally vanished.

"Thank you, Chuck," Blair said. And that was all she said, just because she knew that no more words were needed. They never were between the two of them. Always, there was an unspoken conversation lying underneath their real one, and that was all that mattered right then. Because Chuck knew exactly what she was saying, and all the words she meant in between that hadn't been mentioned aloud.

It was them.

"Thank _you_," he said, smiling.

This was _them._

**A/N:** Reviews are obviously not required, but much appreciated.


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